


Shipmates

by Lesetoilesfous



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, M/M, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 17:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11764662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesetoilesfous/pseuds/Lesetoilesfous
Summary: Something is wrong with Taako.After the storm, after the story and the song, the Starblaster's crew finds time to unpack the changes in their friend and brother, and to do what they can to help.





	1. Something Is Terribly Wrong

“Something’s wrong with Taako.” It’s Davenport who says something first.

 

After the storm, and after the fight, when the dust has settled and everything is said and done, the IPRE crew and the former Bureau of Balance members are given weeks, and then months, and then years to adjust to reality again. The BOB doesn’t disband, exactly, taking it upon itself to continue fighting injustice in the world below, and Lucretia holds her position of Madam Director by popular vote.

 

Davenport stays on the moon because he’s still not sure if he’ll ever be able to go back down planetside, and the others do the same. Taako and Lup have nowhere to go, exactly, and Magnus isn’t ready to return to Ravensroost, he’s not sure he ever will be. Barry has every intention of being exactly where Lup is for the rest of his life, and Merle makes noises of protest and visits the beach on weekends, but all of them know the truth of the matter is that he has no intention of living without them.

 

His kids visit, sometimes, and so far Davenport is the best with them, although Lup comes in at a close second through sheer charisma. Life goes on.

 

During the fighting, and just before it, the IPRE crew who’d been left behind hadn’t really had a chance to process if and how Magnus, Taako and Merle had changed since they’d last seen them. Stripped of his sanity, Davenport thought little of his years spent as Lucretia’s ward, and he preferred to keep it that way, though he drank stronger liquor now and avoided the halls and corridors that she tended to frequent.

 

Lup and Barry had been so busy holding themselves together that they hadn’t had the time or the mental energy to see how well Magnus, Taako and Merle were doing the same. But in the time that follows their last, glorious fight against the Hunger, they learn a handful of details: some big, some small.

 

Lup, Barry, Davenport and Lucretia learn of Magnus’ quest for vengeance, the quest passed on to Merle and Taako in Wonderland, and solemnly they take it upon themselves. They learn about Magnus’ wife, and the happy years he spent with her, and they each long to have met her, at least once.

 

They learn about Merle’s own unhappy marriage, and the children that made it better. They learn about Taako’s ‘TV show’, and whilst they laugh at Taako’s flamboyant retellings of his best performances, they each find time to talk to his fans, and read the recipe books he wrote in the lonely years before he found them again.

 

There are gaps, certainly, and some of them are painful, but they’re not all bad.

 

Except this one. Barry and Lup are dancing around each other in one of the Bureau of Balance’s many, many kitchens, whipping up spaghetti bolognaise and bumping each other’s hips on the way, laughing and taking time to reassure themselves that the other is there, and there with them, and safe. Lup’s missing more than a few scars since they regrew her body in Garfield’s bizarre tank, but she’s still herself, and that’s the main thing.

 

Davenport almost doesn’t want to interrupt, but his concern overrides his sympathy. And so he repeats himself, a little louder, checking the open door to be sure that no one’s listening.

 

“Something’s wrong with Taako.”

 

Lup’s ears slip down and Barry sighs, pushing the spaghetti in his pan with a fork before taking it off the stove and pouring it into a colander. “Yeah. We know.”

 

Davenport sits down at the table whilst Lup gives her pan one last stir. “Where is he tonight, anyway?”

 

“Planetside with Magnus and Merle. They’re down at Hurley and Sloane’s cherry tree to drink to a memory, or something.” Lup shrugs, as if she doesn’t care too much either way, and she fools neither Barry nor Davenport.

 

Barry takes a moment to rest a hand on her shoulder before fishing out two bowls from the cupboard. He pauses to look at Davenport. “Oh, um, do you want some?”

 

Davenport shakes his head, and stares at his hands whilst Lup and Barry serve their food. His hands: his palms and fingers and wrists, are more scarred these days. It took him, and the rest of the crew, several months to remember that their bodies weren’t just going to reset in a year, and by that point most of them had earned their fair share of injuries.

 

He supposes he could cast a glamour to mask it, but he doesn’t see the point. They remind him of who he is, and where he’s been.

 

“Seems like they went through a lot whilst we...” Davenport hesitates, swallows his distaste, tries not to shake at the sound of his own name ringing through his head, “were absent.”

 

“Speak for yourself captain, I was trapped in an umbrella.” Lup sits down across from him. Barry scratches the back of his head.

 

“We all went through a lot.”

 

Davenport frowns. “That’s not exactly my point. You know, Magnus and Merle - they’re different, right? You can feel and see how their marriages changed them. And it’s not all bad, by any means, but we knew them so well. We knew them for a hundred years. And they’re not the same.”

 

Barry shrugs whilst Lup digs into her pasta. “I mean, yeah, but neither are we.”

 

“Fair point. But. With Taako, in particular -“ Lup swallows and nudges Barry with her elbow.

 

“Babe, eat up, the food is getting cold. And it’s fucking amazing, obviously.”

 

Barry smiles and kisses her cheek and Lup’s left ear flicks upward as she blushes whilst he starts to eat. Davenport looks past them, through the door, at the huge window through which they can see Faerun, far below, and the oceans around it illuminating the corridor with watery blue light.

 

The smells of garlic, tomatoes and olive oil fill the room, and his stomach grumbles. He isn’t hungry, but...

 

Lup rolls her eyes. “We left you extra, cap’n’port - we’re not living on rations any more, you know.”

 

Davenport shrugs, getting up to help himself to some of the food. “I guess it’s a hard habit to shake.”

 

When he sits back down, it’s Lup who speaks first. “He doesn’t cook any more.” Her voice is flat, but in the time they’ve known each other, Davenport knows as well as Barry does that this speaks to her concern.

 

Lup pushes back the mop of hair that rests over her undercut and scratches the back of her head, agitated. “I mean, he does, but he doesn’t. Only really safe, easy stuff. _Sandwiches._ And even then. He’s. He’s weird about it. I’d have thought that whole cooking show thing would’ve like, would’ve made him, I don’t know, I mean he’s always kind of been a showboat when he can be and I just kind of thought he’d be throwing five star cooking our way whenever he got the chance. Taking his time to show us how he did complicated stuff whilst we had a drink like we used to back at the academy. But.”

 

She stops, runs a hand over her hair again, and takes a deep breath. Barry puts his hand over her arm. “Yeah, he’s definitely been acting strangely.”

 

Davenport hums. “It’s not just that. I was going to talk to him the other day - I was annoyed, he’d made a mess of the bathroom after doing his hair again in corridor E, but I don’t know, my shadow fell across the door or something? I saw him flinch, as if I was going to attack him. He brushed it off, but...”

 

Barry and Lup exchange a look, and Barry sets down his fork. “Yeah. We’ve seen that too. He’s jumped a couple times when I’ve come up in his blindspot, and uh, the same for Lup.”

 

Lup stares at her pasta with her ears pressed flat back against her head and her lips pursed. Barry puts his arm around her.

 

“At first we thought it was like, from the century we spent on the run? You know, it makes sense that we’d all be a little jumpy, and we are.”

 

Davenport nods, again, pushing back the sound of his own voice (but not him, never him) saying his name.

 

Barry continues, “but, honestly? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. We were always on Taako’s side during those years, and even with the whole, You Know What erasure, he remembers us now.”

 

Davenport pinches the bridge of his nose. “Someone hurt him.”

 

Lup gets up and starts to wash her bowl. Her shoulders are hunched, and she won’t look at them. Barry looks torn, but he stays where he is.

 

“Near as we can figure. It was, well, if I was going to make an educated guess -“

 

“Someone abused him.” The tap water turns to steam as it hits Lup’s hands, but there’s no other outward sign of her anger. “Someone made him scared of simple, stupid things. Someone he spent time with made him feel unsafe. They’ve made him scared of us. They made him scared of me.” It’s at this point that her voice breaks, and Barry gives Davenport a Look that he can translate well enough by now.

 

He gets up to leave whilst Barry stands and turns to Lup, leaving his own food going cold on the table.

 

Davenport hasn’t exactly learned anything new. He’d come to these conclusions himself. It doesn’t make them easier to swallow.

 


	2. Lup Sets A Table On Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is there anything you’d like to share with the class? Magnus? Merle?”

Later, in bed, Lup sits staring at the wall whilst Barry lies with his head in her lap. Gently, she cards her fingers through his hair. Her cheeks are wet with tear tracks, but she’s stopped crying now.

 

“I told you why we left home, didn’t I?”

 

Barry squeezes her midriff. “Yeah.”

 

“Can I tell you again?”

 

He grabs her hand and kisses it. “Of course.”

 

“When we were. Fuck, I forget, like, eight? Or nine? Things got too scary. Our parents had always been stern. Bad tempered. Strict. It was...sort of a thing? They were wealthy, and so we needed to behave. Needed not to embarrass them.” Lup spits out the words as if they’re bitter.

 

“And, you know, they were cruel. Not in any, you know, not in like a super villain way but just. Little stuff. Always telling Taako how stupid he was if he fucked up. Always telling me how I ruined things, how I broke everything I touched. Our mother would fuss endlessly over Taako, his hair and his clothes, and we were, you know we were kids but god forbid she thinks he’s gained wait, he’d be put on, like rations - just the vegetables, no meat, until he ‘got it under control’, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean when you’re saying it to an eight year old.

 

“And where Taako wasn’t outgoing or, like, I guess, fucking, ‘manly’? Enough, I was too loud, too energetic, too excitable. They treated me like a dog that was going to piss itself and they treated Taako the way you’re not supposed to treat one that’s already been kicked too many times. Our Dad...he was almost simpler, honestly. You know, he’d hit us, sometimes he’d have a bit too much to drink and beat the shit out of us, but at least it was just...It was just anger. I could handle that.”

 

Lup sighs, resting her head against the cold metal of the wall. “Taako couldn’t, really. He started jumping at shadows. It was bad enough at school, and in the temples, you know, other kids - they thought he was strange, didn’t understand his interests or his talents. They just thought he was weak. And that was never true, but I couldn’t make everyone understand it. I couldn’t make them see what I saw, how clever he was, and how kind he could be.

 

“And me? Well, I was just the nuisance. I wasn’t clean enough or quiet enough or calm enough for our mother, and I wasn’t disciplined or clever or calculating enough for our father. Between her jibes and the way they wore you down like, the ocean at a beach, and our father ready to explode at any minute...I remember hiding under the end of my bed because I knew that if I hid there, even if they checked, they probably wouldn’t see me.

 

“I remember our mother throwing away one of my favourite toys after a fight and Taako fishing it out again, this ratty toy bug bear that I’d had since we were babies, and Taako snuck out of our house in the night and pulled it out of the trash and cleaned it and gave it back to me and we just cried. By the time we...you know when, just before we left...

 

“Well, we weren’t much of ourselves, and I think we could see that in each other. Like, we could see that we were losing each other, and we tried to keep it together but Taako was getting so scared and I was getting so angry. Angry at our mother and her poisonous words and the things she wanted us to do and the way we felt like prisoners and the way it didn’t feel right, and the way I knew that my baby brother shouldn’t flinch when his mother went to kiss his cheek. A day didn’t go by when one of us wasn’t bruised, and the words hurt more than the physical stuff did anyway.

 

“One day, Taako came into my room before I had the chance to go to his, and he said that he couldn’t stay any more, and I knew he meant it because I couldn’t either. Three nights later, we left. We didn’t look back.”

 

Lup takes a deep breath and bends her legs, and Barry sits up beside her. He asks, softly, “is this making you think of that?”

 

Lup presses a hand to her forehead. “I mean, how couldn’t it? I see him now and he’s just, he’s that kid that I was going to give up everything with just so we’d be safe again. We spent years running, years on the road and he still, I still...” Her voice breaks, and she falls into Barry’s embrace. “I let him down, love, I let him down.”

 

Barry kisses her forehead and rubs her back and shakes his head and whispers in the darkness. “No, no no it’s ok, lover, it’s alright. I know it’s. It’s shit. But this wasn’t you. This wasn’t your fault.”

 

Lup ’s chest heaves as she sobs, and her tears are wine-dark as they fall onto their sheets in the little light of the planet below through their porthole window. “He’s my baby brother and I’m supposed to protect him and I was supposed to be there for him and I wasn’t, Barry, I wasn’t there for him.”

 

Barry holds her tightly, and he kisses the tears away from her cheeks as they fall, and he repeats, over and over again, “it wasn’t your fault, love. It wasn’t you.”

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Davenport books Magnus and Merle for a meeting in one of the Bureau’s grandiose conference rooms. Lup and Barry saunter in looking tired but determined, and not much later, Lucretia rushes in too, hurriedly giving instructions to a tense looking Avi.

 

“So, what’s the meeting for Cap’n’port? Are we throwing a surprise party for Taako and Lup? Please tell me we’re throwing a surprise party for Taako and Lup. Oh, hey Lup,” Magnus is beaming so widely in his excitement it takes him a minute to process his own words, and his face falls.

 

Barry pinches the bridge of his nose. “Magnus, you know I love you, but their birthday is in May. You remember that, right?”

 

Magnus laughs, scratching his head and looking at Merle for support. “Uh, yeah, obviously. Totally, I knew that.”

 

“If you’re quite finished?” Davenport says, with a calm that only being captain of this particular crew for 100 years could have allowed him.

 

“What’s up, Dav?” Merle asks, leaning back in his chair, and looking about as swayed by Davenport’s authority as he ever has been in a crew meeting.

 

Lup takes the next words out of his mouth, “someone hurt Taako. We think someone abused him. I don’t know who, and I don’t know for how long, but he hasn’t said anything to me about it - ” she pauses to clear her throat, “and I’m worried.”

 

Davenport nods, and tries not to make his concern known. He knows that in Lup’s particular case she’d consider it to be more of an insult than anything. “We’re all worried.”

 

Both Magnus and Merle look like they’ve been sucker punched. Davenport raises his eyebrows at them.

 

“Is there anything you’d like to share with the class? Magnus? Merle?”

 

Lucretia shifts in her seat, and Davenport turns to her as well. She won’t meet his eyes, but then she hasn’t really done that since he got his mind back. “Lucretia?”

 

“I don’t think. It’s not really our place to tell.” Magnus sounds pained as he says the words, and Merle nudges his arm with his shoulder.

 

“Yeah, Magnus is right. We shouldn’t - we can’t break his confidence like that.”

 

Sparks are dancing in circles around Lup’s fingers, and she doesn’t look at them when she speaks. “But something did happen? Someone did hurt him like that?”

 

Merle and Magnus exchange a look, but it’s Lucretia who speaks. “Has he told you about Glamour Springs? He didn’t really share his confidence with me but I, uh, I think I was able to piece some of it together.”

 

“Glamour Springs?” Barry is the first to ask in the silence that follows. Lup frowns at Lucretia out of confusion more than any real annoyance. Magnus swears under his breath.

 

“So we can take that as a no, then.” Merle says, and he sounds a great deal less amused than he usually does.

 

Magnus passes his hand over his face. “Well, technically this is just public knowledge, but, ah, Taako stopped doing his show after he was framed for mass murder. Forty people died in this little frontier town called Glamour Springs after eating samples of the, uh, food he cooked. He was on the run from that day pretty much until he found us.” He catches himself. “Well, found us again, I guess I should say.”

 

Lup slams her first down onto the table. “Why hasn’t he told me any of this himself?”

 

“I mean, I don’t know, shame, I guess?” Magnus rubs the back of his neck. “It’s not something he likes to talk or, um, think about, near as I can gather. He only told us about the other, um, thing, because we bumped into the -“

 

Lup sets the table on fire. All of them but her leap back with a shout as she’s wreathed in flames, and it’s hard not to see the resemblance between the figure she cuts in that moment and those of the avenging angels emblazoned throughout the holy texts of dozens of their worlds’ religions. “The person who did this _is still alive_?”

 

Whilst Barry and Davenport busy themselves with putting out the table, Lup stalks towards Merle and Magnus. They know she’s not going to hurt them. That doesn’t make her less intimidating, especially not when her eyes are burning something close to gold in the firelight.

 

She gives them one word. “Why?”

 

Merle jumps between her and Magnus before Magnus has the chance to reply. “Well, I mean, first of all, we don’t technically know that this uh, person, is still alive. I mean, they might have been killed on the day of Story and Song, for all we know - ”

 

Magnus shakes his head. “No. He’s alive. Angus has been keeping tabs on him.”

 

Lup’s anger flares visibly in the fire that’s wrapped around her body like a cloak. “The kid knows but I don’t?”

 

Magnus pulls a face. “I know he’s like, eleven, but he actually is the world’s greatest detective. He figured it out. Point of fact, it took him longer than you, which, you know, obviously, you know Taako better than any of us do and ah, you know, obviously I’m guessing you saw like, um, signs and shit and uhhh - ”

 

After a long moment more of Magnus’ rambling, Lup lets the fire around her body die. “So it has something to do with the cooking show?”

 

Magnus lifts his chin. “Look, again, I love you and you know that, but I also don’t feel like I can or should break Taako’s confidence without his permission.” Lup stares at him, stony faced, and Magnus stares right back.

 

Between them, Merle clears his throat, looking ready to jump right back between them when Lup smiles, and she reaches out with a hand that is not on fire. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry Magnus. I don’t want you to be caught in the middle of this.”

 

And she hugs him, and Magnus wraps his arms around her and holds her tightly.

 

“Yeah, Lup, it’s cool. I know. It’s not. You know, it’s not your fault.”

 

Lup laughs softly as she steps back. “So people keep saying.”

 

Merle holds out his arms, “it’s true, sis.”

 

Lup rubs the top of his head, and he pretends to look disgruntled for all of twenty seconds before giving in and offering her a smile.

 

Davenport clears his throat. “Alright, so, if we could please try to avoid setting any more tables on fire, Lup, that’d be great.”

 

Lup shrugs. “Better out than in, Captain.” Magnus laughs out loud, and Davenport pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a long, world-weary sigh so familiar that Barry and Merle can harmonise with it.

 

“I’m going to bow to Lup, Merle and Magnus’ judgement on this, you all know Taako a little better than the rest of us. If you think he needs to tell us about this himself, then we’ll ask him. It concerns me that whoever did this is wandering free somewhere on Faerun, but I, too, am convinced of Angus’ detective capabilities. I’m sure he’ll tell us if there’s every any pressing need for concern.” He takes a deep breath and straightens, setting his shoulders back and lifting his chin.

 

“Merle, Magnus, is there anything else we need to know?”

 

Merle looks at Magnus before saying, “yeah, I mean, probably don’t ask him to cook.”

 

Lup frowns, pressing her fingers to her forehead. “Wait, I remember something about this. From when I was in the...well, you know. When I was umbrella lady. Taako said something about not wanting to cook for people he liked and then, it was in that town, with the Temporal Chalice.”

 

Magnus looks pained, but he nods. “Yeah, I think there was something in the ‘mistake’ June said Taako could undo.”

 

Lup winces as a migraine shoves its way into her skull, but the memory is there. Faded and distant, but there. “He was framed. I remember. By some...the guy...What was his name?” Barry puts his hand on her shoulder, concerned as she winces. “Sazed.”

 

She says the word and a handful of memories come swinging back, not least of which being those in which she heard her brother crying out in the night, not quite himself. She’d heard that name, heard it said with anger and sadness and regret. She knew that name.

 

Fire rippled across Lup’s skin, dancing deftly around Barry’s fingers, and both Magnus and Merle got to their feet. Magnus cleared his throat.

 

“And that’s our cue to leave. Good talk. See you later, Cap’n’port.”

 

Lup breathes deeply, holding that name tightly in her mind as she comes back to herself, to feel Barry’s hand on her back, and hear Lucretia and Davenport making awkward small talk in the corner of the room.

 

“Hey, are you alright?” Barry’s brown eyes are gentle and full of concern when she meets them, and she kisses the wrinkle from his forehead. His skin is soft and dry and warm.

 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She gets up, gently pushing away Barry’s worried touches. “I need to talk to my brother.” She can feel Barry and Davenport and Lucretia’s gazes on her as she leaves. She ignores them. For the first time in months, she’s a woman on a mission.


	3. The Twins Just Wanna Have Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Lup? What’s wrong?” His voice is immeasurably soft, he’s only ever this gentle with her, and Lup isn’t sure how much more softness she can take from the people around her.

When she finds Taako, he’s baking. Lup is so relieved that for a moment she forgets to breathe because this: her brother in a knee-length skirt and an apron tied in a neat bow around his waist and flour on his nose and bright blue oven gloves on the table - this is home.

 

For a moment she doesn’t move, worried that she’ll break the tableau if she does. She watches Taako hum softly, tunelessly to himself, shake the pan with his macarons on it and open the oven door with his foot. She starts to smile.

 

“That’s not very safe, little brother.” She means it as a joke but he reacts as if he’s been electrocuted, bristling as his ears pin back against his hair, and he’d have dropped the tray if Lup hadn’t cast a quick levitation spell before she could finish her thought.

 

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

 

Carefully, Taako sets down the tray of cookies and takes a deep breath. Then he turns to her, and Lup can see the panic he’s still trying to mask and she hates that he feels like he needs to hide this from her. “Well yeah _sis_ , that’s what happens when you sneak up on a guy while he’s working.”

 

Lup lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug and speaks carefully as Taako slips the sweets into the oven. “Normally you’d have heard me by the time I was at the door.”

 

Taako takes off his oven gloves and drops them on the side, going to touch his hair before thinking better of it and running his hands down his sides. “Yeah, well, I was concentrating. It’s been known to happen.”

 

Lup frowns a little, leaning against the kitchen counter between her brother and the sink and folding her arms. “I know that.” She offers him a smile, which she’s used to him recognising as the white flag that it is. “Graduated top of his class in Arcane Arts at the IPRE academy, that’s the brother I know.”

 

Taako offers her a soft laugh, but he still looks distracted, and his hands are shaking as he moves to wash up the dishes. Lup steps towards him, more slowly than she has in over a century, and gently takes the bowl out of his hands.

 

“Let me do that.”

 

Taako tries to protest, but she glares at him, and eventually he gives up and goes to sit at the table in front of the oven. Lup is careful to keep her back to him as she speaks.

 

“Something on your mind?”

 

“Other than how delicious these cookies are going to be? Not really.” Lup tries not to let her impatience show. She’s not frustrated with her brother, not at all. But her own helplessness is driving her insane.

 

She vents a little of her magic into heating up the water and sets to scrubbing Taako’s bowls with a little more vigour than is strictly necessary for a container which had only held dry ingredients.

 

“You, uh, you sure?”

 

Taako hums an affirmation, and she can feel his gaze on her now. “Are you?”

 

Lup hunches her shoulders and tries not to say all of the things she wants to say, and her hesitation takes long enough for Taako to get worried.

 

“Lup? What’s wrong?” His voice is immeasurably soft, he’s only ever this gentle with her, and Lup isn’t sure how much more softness she can take from the people around her.

 

She sets down the bowl she’s been scrubbing and leaves it to drain, taking a deep breath and looking up at the brightly polished chrome of the ceiling. She wonders whether it’s an enchantment that keeps it clean or if Lucretia employs people to keep the base as neat and tidy as it is. She’s surprised she’s never thought about it before. She supposes she could figure it out, but she doesn’t really need to - and now Taako’s hand is on her arm.

 

Lup shakes her head. “I’m fine. Do you want me to be honest?”

 

Taako frowns a little. “Naturally.”

 

Lup starts washing the measuring cups. “I’m worried about you.”

 

She can feel her brother’s surprise, she doesn’t need to see the way his ears flick up and then down again. “Me? I’m fine. Never been better. Vision’s twenty twenty and it all goes up from - ”

 

“I know something’s wrong, Taako.” Lup’s trying so hard to keep her voice level, but she feels Taako notice her anger, and she takes another deep breath. “I’m not angry at you. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. I’m just. I’m worried. I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me, and I don’t know why. I know. I know we were separated but. You still trust me, right?”

 

She can’t look at him when she asks, but then Taako’s pushing her shoulder and she meets his eyes and she can’t really handle the worry there, so when he offers her a rare hug she takes it and holds him tight and wishes she could keep the world at bay.

 

“Of course I do, Lu. You know that. The...the time we spent apart, it doesn’t mean anything.”

 

Lup sniffles and wipes her nose on her sleeve before pulling back. “But that’s not true. I was trapped in a goddamn umbrella, but you - you were living a life. A life where you thought you grew up without me. That can’t have been easy and we’ve never just talked about it.”

 

Taako glances away, and his ears snap downwards. Lup tries not to watch them. She knows they’ll tell her more about what her brother’s feeling than he will, but she also knows that he likes to share his thoughts and feelings at his own pace.

 

The tap is still running, and she turns to switch it off, scrubbing the last few utensils and setting them down to dry. Taako takes a deep breath, and then walks away, to the other end of the kitchen. Lup hesitates, standing between the counter and the kitchen table, and then Taako fishes down a bottle of fortified wine from the cupboard and two glasses.

 

He sits down across from her, and pours them both a drink. The acid smell of alcohol joins that of burnt sugar wafting from the oven, which hums in the background. Distantly, they can hear voices and footsteps as the Bureau’s remaining employees make their way about their daily duties.

 

Taako takes a long sip, and then he says. “Alright. That’s fair. What do you want to know?”

 

Lup bites down her desire to say ‘everything,’ and goes instead for, “what happened to your show? I sort of overheard it, but I don’t think I’ve got the full picture.”

 

Taako winces, then takes another drink. He gives himself a moment to collect himself, and Lup counts the seconds in which her heart hangs between one beat and the next before he speaks. “So, um, you know I did that whole, Sizzle it Up with Taako thing? Well, there was this guy, this um, this person, who was called Sazed, and he...”

 

They talk long into the night, and then into the early hours of the morning. By the end of it, both of them have cried and neither would admit it to the other, and despite the three empty bottles sitting on the table, they’ve barely hit buzzed by the time they stop drinking. Arm in arm, they wander towards the main quad in the centre of the bureau and sit down on the grass in time to watch the sun come up over Faerun.

 

It’s a sight to see from their vantage point, and the quad is as quiet as it ever is, but for the low hum of the machines and spells keeping the lights on. Lup leans into Taako’s shoulder, and he leans into her, and they’re quiet as they watch the sun rising gold and amber, casting shadows hundreds of miles long across the planet below.

 

Lup says, softly, “why didn’t you tell me before?”

 

Taako sighs, and shuts his eyes, and imagines he can feel the warmth of sunlight on his skin. “Because that would make it real. And not all part of the same shitty, shitty dream where I had to grow up without you.”

 

Lup squeezes his arm, and he doesn’t pull away. Neither of them says anything. They already know: this is enough.

 


	4. Barold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry feels his mouth twist, and sets down his mug. “I’m guessing these won’t be up to your usual standard.” He gestures at the pancakes, offering a smile as he rubs the back of his neck.

A few weeks later, Barry is making pancakes. The IPRE crew had, once again, celebrated what they’d come to call their ‘Reuniversary’. These affairs tended to begin in one of two ways - with Davenport and Lucretia getting into an all out fight, or with Barry, Lup and Taako getting so drunk before the evening on breakfast mimosas that the rest of the night was kind of a blur. That evening had been one of the former, and Barry suspected that Davenport and Lucretia would not speak to each other for a good few weeks. Again.

 

The rest of them: his family, really, were asleep. Magnus had passed out on the couch in the next room, and whilst Merle had started off asleep somewhere round his belly, at some point in the night he’d toppled onto the floor.

 

Taako and Lup were locked in a knot like a pair of cats in his room, and Barry hadn’t seen much point in disturbing them. So he’d gotten up from where he’d crashed on the floor next to Merle and set about making pancakes.

 

He’d left both Davenport and Lucretia enchanted messages telling them that they were welcome, but he suspected that neither would take him up on his offer. It wasn’t perfect, exactly. But it was all they had.

 

Well, there was that, and the fact that Lup had seen personally to getting Lucretia as drunk as was physically possible without becoming life threatening, whilst Merle had dragged Davenport up onto the roof for a few hours of existential wondering before Magnus came to find him and pull him into a drinking game with Taako.

 

No one was going to talk about the melancholic looks that Davenport and Merle tended to shoot one another when they thought nobody was looking, or about the fact that as soon as Merle got too inebriated to make sense, Davenport quietly made his excuses and then his way home.

 

Barry hoped they’d figure it out, eventually.

 

His pancakes don’t really hold a candle to Taako’s. Or Lup’s for that matter, but he’s always been the early riser of the seven of them, and he’s found that just having hot food ready in the morning more than makes up for a lumpy mixture or a pinch more salt than necessary. He’s got a French press soaking up coffee and a kettle on with some (really, disgusting) herbal tea for Merle. He’s set the table and cleaned what he can of the mess without waking the rest of them.

 

He looks out of the window at the ever-vertigo-inducing view of the sunrise. He likes the windows on the base, their porthole-shape reminds him of the Starblaster. He suspects that this was deliberate, if Lucretia had anything to do with the designs. Picking up his coffee, Barry lets his mind wander.

 

“Sup B-man.” Taako yawns, exposing his midriff. Neither he nor Lup ever really bothered with getting dressed on days like these, and Barry isn’t really surprised to catch his brother in law in a faded crop top and ratty sweat pants. He’s a little taken aback by the fact that Taako is hovering in the doorway. If they were back on the Starblaster, by this point Taako would have elbowed him away from the stove with a string of rude and semi-plausible excuses and taken over.

 

Barry feels his mouth twist, and sets down his mug. “I’m guessing these won’t be up to your usual standard.” He gestures at the pancakes, offering a smile as he rubs the back of his neck.

 

Taako’s gaze skids to the pile of pancakes on the plate next to the hob and then away again, and Barry doesn’t need to know him as well as he does to know that he didn’t really look at them. “I’m sure they’ll be great, my man.”

 

Barry frowns, flipping the latest cake in the pan. It’s riddled with lumps but fluffy enough, and only a little blackened on the edges. Honestly, it’s one of his better efforts. “I mean, if you say so?” He tries a laugh. “I guess there’s a chance you had a bit too much to drink last night. How much was that, exactly?”

 

Taako shrugs, helping himself to a coffee and slumping down at the kitchen counter. “Fuck if I know Barold, I stopped counting at shot number twelve, fifteen, twenty-six? Or something.”

 

Barry laughs, sincerely this time, and plates up a handful of pancakes, dropping them in front of Taako and moving past him to grab the neatly sliced limes and bowl of sugar he’d left on the kitchen table. It’s at that moment, as he brushes past, one arm moving forward, that Taako flinches hard enough for him to spill his coffee.

 

Barry freezes, and Taako’s eyes dart to stare at him before he hides his face between his arms, groaning, and gets up to grab a cloth. “Guessing the hangover did a number on my co-ordination. Apologies, dude.” He’s trying to sound airy, but his ears are pinned flat back against his head and Barry knows him better than this, and standing between the counter and the table, he straightens his shoulders and clenches his fists.

 

He doesn’t turn around when he speaks, and his voice is soft. “Taako. Listen, I don’t think for a second that this is about me. But...it feels really, really weird to me when I scare you like that.” Now Barry turns, but Taako doesn’t look up from where he’s wiping down the counter.

 

“What are you talking about?” Taako’s voice falls flat, and Barry’s pretty sure that he’s not fooling either of them. He’s also pretty sure that if he’d been almost anyone else, Taako would have left by now. He steps closer, slowly.

 

“You’re my friend. And you don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to tell me. But if there’s something I can do, to make you feel more comfortable, or, fuck, gods forbid, if there’s something that I have done to make you feel...” Barry’s mouth goes dry, and he has to swallow to get the next word out, “unsafe, around m-me, then please can you let me know? I don’t. You’re a very, very important person in my life, Taako, and I don’t want to make you feel like you can’t trust me.”

 

As he’s been speaking, Taako’s shoulders have been climbing closer and closer to the gold hoops curling around the bottom of his ears. But when Barry finishes, he lets them slump with a long, slow sigh and passes a hand over his forehead.

 

When he speaks, he meets Barry’s gaze. “Of course I trust you, Barold. One hundred years of bromance doesn’t just fade away.” He offers a crooked smile, and Barry returns it. “Even if you can’t cook for shit.”

 

Barry’s grin grows wider, even as he protests. “Just because I’m not a gourmet chef doesn’t mean I’m bad at it, you ass.”

 

Taako raises an eyebrow, and his eyes are twinkling. “You know the only thing standing between you and being a gourmet chef, B-man?”

 

Barry shakes his head, still smiling. “I’m going to regret this, but what?”

 

“Effort!” Taako crows. “Honestly, you just need a little practice. And then someday, maybe, you’ll be able to cook like me.”

 

Barry folds his arms. “Yeah, why don’t you prove it, hotshot?” He’s still smiling, but Taako’s ears flicker downwards, and Barry is frowning before he has the chance to recover. “Um, I mean, forget about it.” Taako glances at the door, and Barry tries not to let him see the way that hurts his feelings.

 

“No, no. It’s cool. It’s totally cool.” Taako turns to the bowl of pancake mixture by the stove, and he can’t really hide how much his hand is shaking from either of them. Barry walks closer.

 

“Taako, I’m serious, you don’t seem -“ Barry breaks off as Taako shoves the spoon into his mouth, ears still pinned back, then spits a little bit out again, laughing even as he covers his wipes the mixture off his chin.

 

“Geez, Barry, it’s pancake batter, how...how did you over-salt pancake batter? It’s not hard.” Taako shakes his head, spitting the rest of the mixture down the sink. “Oh my sweet summer child, you have so much to learn.” He’s still grinning a little as he reaches into the cupboards, grabbing some caster sugar and a bottle of vanilla extract.

 

Barry doesn’t move to stop him, instead choosing to stand in the corner of the kitchen and smile. “Yeah, yeah, you’re worse than Lup, you know that?”

 

Taako hums. “I should hope so Barold, I’m not obliged to be nice to you by virtue of holy union.”

 

Barry laughs. “We both know that has never been what our marriage has meant to either of us.”

 

Taako hums, but by now he’s distracted by the pancake mixture. Still, there’s something off about it - about the way he keeps taste testing everything with shaking hands: the sugar, the milk, the vanilla, even the flour. Barry tries not to frown.

 

“So, um, about that other thing?”

 

Taako sighs. “I’m not scared of you, Barry.”

 

Barry opens his mouth to respond, but Taako continues.

 

“I’m not scared of you but, I was, and that’s a was, mind you, past tense, I was um, well, scared,” the word comes out like it’s being dragged through a piece of farm equipment, “of someone who looked a little like you. I, ah, I get like that, sometimes, with Magnus, too, so it’s nothing personal. It’s just, you know, a, um, human of a certain build. In the corner of my eye it’s easy to, um.”

 

Barry laces his fingers together to stop himself from curling them into fists, because he’s not sure how Taako would interpret that. “I think I understand. Is there anything I can do to, um, I guess, make the difference more obvious?”

 

Taako is quiet for a moment, stirring the new mixture and testing its consistency with a clinical eye. “Not, not that I can think of. It took Magnus a while, and that was before we remembered, you know, everything, but I’m only more comfortable with him now because of, ah, you know, everything else that’s, um, happened. I guess maybe he might have some thoughts? I know he changed some of the ways he acted, after we, uh, talked about it.” He turns the hob back on and drops a lump of butter into the pan. “I mean, I think it’s just stuff like, maybe, be, careful? Of like just, coming up on me quietly, or in a blindspot, stuff like that.”

 

Barry nods, and stares at Taako’s untouched pancakes. He takes a few breaths to ground himself whilst Taako carefully drops some of his adjusted pancake batter into the pan. “Ok. I’ll do that. Taako...I know Lup talked to you about this, but I mean, we both know she’d never break your confidence, so that’s all I know that she’s told me. Still, I have my own suspicions and what you’re saying is, well, it’s kind of a red flag and, I mean not just as your brother-in-law but as your, um, friend. Well, I consider you a close friend, um, obviously.” Barry lets out breath and runs a hand through his hair, and he can’t look at Taako when he asks his next question, though he feels Taako’s eyes on him.

 

“Did someone hurt you?”

 

Taako expertly flips the pancake he’s been cooking before he replies. “Geez, you, Lup, Davenport. It’s a regular Taako pity fest up here these days.”

 

Barry goes to say something, but Taako stops him, even as he slides his (perfectly smooth, golden brown) pancake onto the stack and slips the plate into the oven to keep it warm.

 

“So first, of course you’re a close friend, Barold, that’s not even a question, and it’s dumb that after, what, 106? Years you’re even asking that, but you’re cool so I’ll humour you. Second...Yeah. You can talk to Lup about the details, if you want, you have my permission or whatever, I’m not going to go over it twice. But yeah. I was in, a bad, well, it wasn’t really a relationship, but it was a bad thing with a bad person and it fucked me up, a bit, for a while there. But, uh, I’m happy to report, I’m getting better. Kind of. Definitely on the way there. All aboard the, uh, healing express and all that.”

 

Taako makes a train sound, and Barry laughs, and in the other room they hear the undignified sounds of Merle and Magnus emerging from their hungover slumber. Getting up, Barry starts making sure that everything is ready for their breakfast, and as he does he clears his throat. “Alright, well, um, good talk. And uh, Taako?”

 

He looks up, seeing Taako flipping another pancake without so much as breaking a sweat. “Hm?”

 

“You know, you can talk to me about this, any time. Anything you need, I’ll, well, I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen.”

 

Taako smiles down at the frying pan, and though he doesn’t turn to look at Barry, his ears flick up a little higher than before.

 

“Yeah. Obviously.”

 


	5. Light Reading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So he gets that this isn’t about him, but… Taako runs his fingers carefully over the cool, slightly rough crimson linen of the book’s hardback cover. He can’t help but feel the edges of something tailored: tailored in the way you lay cheese for a mouse, or steak for a wolf. Licking his dry lips, he flicks the book back open to another page, and another subtitle.

Lucretia’s efforts are, as is her wont, somewhat more subtle than the rest, and they start well before the end of all things. They start, in point of fact, with minor illusions.

 

Taako has snuck into the library one day, at an hour of night which all diurnal creatures would call ungodly (because he can’t possibly be seen in a library) and he’s halfway up a bookshelf, fishing out a book on Tiefling curries because he was sure that there was a specific flavour combination he wasn’t getting quite right. And so what if he was just playing it through in his head, so what if his hands still shook when he went to pick up the spices, it still needed to be theoretically perfect. And just like any great artist, Taako knew that he would not be much without good references.

 

So yes, he’s up there in the middle of the night and the lights are off because hey, dark vision, pretty sweet on secret moon bases as it turns out - and no one else is around because most of the moon’s nocturnal employees keep fairly rigorous schedules and tend to stick to their allotted hours of meditation and free time like the collective forest of sticks in butt holes that they are.

 

Taako doesn’t care about anyone else getting their (likely much needed after saving the world every day) rest - and he’s only making every effort to be as silent as possible in order to protect his vanity. Obviously.

 

So anyway, he’s halfway up this ladder in the dark fishing out the book on North-Eastern Tiefling cooking he’d spied on the first day he, Merle and Magnus had arrived whilst Lucretia was taking them personally through their induction. (A courtesy he was fairly certain she’d extended in order only to avoid submitting any of her hapless employees to the Herculean task.)

 

He manages to get it and nearly falls and catches himself haphazardly with a levitation spell and thanks the pantheon of gods he half believes in that nobody woke up.

 

And then he flicks to the index with practiced ease because intuition is great but you know, master craftspeople and references and all that. Which is when a subtitle catches his eye.

 

“OVERCOMING TOXIC LEGACIES: FORMING NEW RELATIONSHIPS”

 

Taako drops the book like its burned him which, well, it has been known to happen, and then he checks both ways down the shelves more thoroughly than he ever has crossing the street, and he picks the book back up and squints at it as if that will change the text. And for all he knows it might - because the title still reads: ‘Mountain Bones: Tiefling Tastes of the North East’, and it’s written in fancy gilt lettering and it doesn’t smudge when he rubs it with the pad of his thumb.

 

Nose twitching in the dust, Taako murmurs a quick spell. The corners of his vision blur with faint spots of light like a city from a distance in the dark. But the book itself remains dim. Whatever - whoever did this, they took great pains to do it without magic. Which, he supposes, in their world, is actually more subtle than a spell would be.

 

Someone had bound, Taako smacks his lips at the taste of bile in the back of his throat, someone had bound a...Self-Help book into the cover of a book on Tiefling recipes. And it wasn’t like he thought that the world revolved around him, or like he didn’t think anyone else on the moon needed North-Eastern Tiefling recipes. Or self-help, for that matter - and despite himself Taako’s mind flickers to the nightmares Magnus steadfastly refuses to discuss in the mornings, and the way that Merle never actually says anything that dips deeper into his life than a dick joke and a Kenny Chesney tattoo. The way Lucretia always looks so tired.

 

So he gets that this isn’t about him, but… Taako runs his fingers carefully over the cool, slightly rough crimson linen of the book’s hardback cover. He can’t help but feel the edges of something tailored: tailored in the way you lay cheese for a mouse, or steak for a wolf. Licking his dry lips, he flicks the book back open to another page, and another subtitle.

 

“GASLIGHTING: IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S THEM”

 

Frowning a little, he checks the empty shelves again before sliding down to the floor, with his back to the bookshelf. And after one last check for prying eyes, he starts to read.

 

Over the next few months, Taako works his way through a small bookshelf of ‘presents’ left for him by a mysterious benefactor he increasingly suspects is his employer. They’re always bound as recipe books, and he always finds them at night. And, over time, he always reads them. And, after time, they start to sink in.

 

When Lucretia’s betrayal is revealed, a great many things flicker through Taako’s mind. Rage, pain, grief. But there’s one thought that he can’t quite get out of his head. It’s like a song he’s heard too many times to lose. And that’s the fact that she really didn’t need to go to all that effort - the effort he’d spent the occasional, private, fond moment thinking on - carefully slicing books from their covers and stitching and gluing them back into place, finding titles she knew he’d look for, finding books she thought would help him. She didn’t need to do that.

 

So maybe, and the gods’ know he’ll never admit it but maybe, just maybe, one night after the storm, and the story, and the song, Taako sits down with a heavy leather bound manuscript illuminated in silver letters with the grandiose title: ‘A Full And Thorough Natural History of Faerun and Its Peoples’, and he gets out a scalpel, and he gets to work.

 

And maybe, just maybe, Lucretia is sorting through box after box of books in her new library late at night and she finds one bound in leather and a little bit dusty with the kind of title she’d love to read, and she lifts the cover and the title page reads: ‘Trauma, And The Language Of Healing.’

 

And maybe she cries. And maybe Taako is just outside the door, and he doesn’t come in, but he whispers a spell that makes the room a little warmer, a little brighter, a little gentler. Not all races have dark vision, after all.

 


	6. Cap'n'Port

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In short: life goes on.

Over the years, the last, brave recruits of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration come to learn that healing, and kindness, and love, are far greater weapons of justice than vengeance had ever been. Lup searches for Sazed, sometimes tirelessly, and Magnus, Merle and Barry resist their urge to join her, caught between their fury and their desire to respect Taako’s wishes. It’s over. He wants to move on. Sazed can live and die elsewhere. As far as Taako’s concerned, he doesn’t exist any more.

 

But he does exist, and both of the twins still fall sometimes from meditating into states of panic, frightening their undead lovers with sudden punches and choking tears. Barry knows what Lup needs from him, and he knows she’ll tell him if she needs anything else. Over time, Kravitz comes to learn the same of Taako. These fears, with the ghosts and bones of the rest of their memories - from those hundred years and their battles and the times when they were smaller people, become part of the fabric woven through their lives.

 

In short: life goes on.

 

Until one night, Davenport is in Neverwinter. He’s in a restaurant on the city’s outskirts, sitting in a courtyard lit gently by the muted warmth of gas lamps in ornate iron cages. He’s dressed well, but casually, as casually as he can manage after a century and a lifetime before that of dedication to his career. On his right wrist is a braided leather band, clumsily embossed with curling vines. Merle had given it to him one night after the storm, red faced and smelling of brandy.

 

Davenport had thought he might like to see it tonight. But once again, Merle hasn’t arrived, and the night is getting late. Davenport can’t find it in himself at this point to feel angry, or embarrassed, despite the stares and minor celebrity that Johann’s battle cry had brought both him and his crew. He’s been skating this dance with Merle for over a hundred years, and he’s willing to wait through a few more.

 

He drains his glass, and checks his bottle, and pushes his plate away. He hasn’t quite made it to asking for the bill when a tall, well built human man comes over.

 

The hair on the back of Davenport’s neck stands on end.

 

Davenport likes to think that he is not a paranoid man. He knows that he is less trusting than many of his crew. He also knows that that has saved many of their lives more times than he can count. He knows he can be callous to survive, and he knows that this is something he dislikes about himself. He knows that he would like to think better of other people.

 

But there are some things that one hundred years of running with six lives in your hands means you can’t shake easily. And Davenport knows how to recognise a bad feeling when he has one.

 

Between one heartbeat and the next, Davenport looks out at the cobbled street beyond the restaurant’s courtyard, and he sees the terracotta tiles of the houses’ roofs, and he sees the clouds and stars above them, and he thinks about how despite all the fear, and all the pain, all the rage and all the grief, walking between worlds made him feel something else, too.

 

It made him feel powerful. And he’d earned a little wrath.

 

So Davenport dabs his mouth with his napkin, which is a linen so rich it feels like silk or cold water, and he sets it down and he tries not to breathe in the sour smell of bad breath and sweat, and he offers a polite, practiced smile to the human man reaching down to take his plate and he says, “it’s Sazed, isn’t it?”

 

When Davenport leaves Sazed with the police, after extracting a firm guarantee of a life time’s imprisonment for the Glamour Springs murder and promising his testimony (all but a formality at this point, the whole world knows his story), he thinks he’s probably pushing the limits of his celebrity. He knows that the orc and the dragonborn at the station had never imagined that a gnome could do something like that to anyone, let alone somebody four feet taller than them.

 

He’s fairly certain Lup would have killed Sazed, if it had been her. He thinks Taako probably would have too. He guesses Barry might have, knows that he would have done nothing to stop the twins. There is no doubt in his mind: and after one hundred years, he does not think that this is so much presumption as good sense, that the re-appearance of this man into their lives would have caused his crew enormous pain.

 

He also has no doubt that if this man had treated one person in the way that he’d treated Taako, there would have been little to stop him from doing it again.

 

But, Davenport thinks, washing his hands on the moon and carefully applying antiseptic to the nasty cuts on his knuckles, that was what he was there for. To protect them, and to do what needed to be done. This was something he did because he was angry, yes, but it was also something that he did to keep them safe.

 

So when Merle appears in his doorway, shame faced with a bottle of whiskey in his hand and a semi-ironed, half-clean shirt buttoned most of the way up his chest, and he sees Davenport’s bandaged hands and the scratch on his cheek and asks, with a concern that he thinks he’s hiding (he isn’t), “what happened?”

 

Davenport’s answer is simple.

 

“Nobody lays a hand on my crew.” And then he relaxes, and he smiles, and he sees Merle’s grey-green eye fall to the band on his wrist and then glance away. “Would you like to come in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap folks! Obviously a couple of canon details that we learned fairly recently - such as Lup hearing everything that was happening whilst in the umbrella. I hope you don't mind too much! I think this'll be my last character exploration thing for a while, am about to start a bigger AU Taz project though, so please do stay tuned!
> 
> And is always, if you want to chat about TAZ and sundry, you can always hit me up on my tumblr at lesetoilesfous.tumblr.com
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the story!


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